For businesses, establishing a learning culture is key to long-term success, and Consultant Thomas Harford helps businesses zero in on how to learn with his services.

If a business isn’t growing, it is dying. But how does a business grow when revenues are flat? An engaged, motivated workforce can help by providing new ideas and energy. Thomas Harford helps businesses keep employees focused and invested by taking the pulse of an enterprise, finding its learning culture and amplifying it.

What is a learning culture? A lot more than routine rote trainings or slideshow based training modules. It involves having an overall approach to employee development and talent retention according to Thomas Harford.

Unfortunately, in today’s economy, businesses are constantly consolidating operations and at times, streamlining essential services like human resources at the expense of meaningful employee development. Thomas Harford describes it as moving away from a more dynamic learning mindset to a focus on strict knowledge acquisition with a hard statistic at the end, such as completion of compliance training for personnel issues or a certification verifying the ability to complete specific tasks

With the absence of an established robust learning culture, consultants like Thomas Harford can fill the gaps in the workplace by finding the best ways to engage employees in a given sector.

Thomas Harford is particularly passionate about helping new businesses and those expanding rapidly establish robust talent retention and growth practices.

This is done by being proactive. Thomas Harford says businesses should foster a drive for creativity and growth, and it needs to extend beyond learn, test and reward. It needs to be an overall sense of curiosity that leads to effective problem solving and helps propel the business forward.

And that doesn’t mean results aren’t measurable. Thomas Harford believes businesses need to accurately and effectively track learning outcomes, but those outcomes may extend beyond completion statistics. Has greater teamwork developed? Are more employees bringing new ideas to the table? Is there improved collaboration and information-sharing across departments? Are employees being rewarded for advanced training?

Thomas Harford always asks new clients if there is a learning mindset. Is growth rewarded and cultivated at the business? Do employees see and embrace the changing landscape, or are they stuck in completing daily tasks with no eye toward the future? Are employees ready to learn rewarded?

As the business evaluation process concludes, Thomas Harford then helps enterprises formalize a learning plan.

Haphazard training components are consolidated with a unified approach focused on effective learning, easily accessible online training and choosing educational opportunities that align with a company’s plans for growth and its mission statement. When needed, collaboration with accessible educational institutions can also be coordinated.